5 indicted in Ohio woman’s dismembering

BARBARA RODRIGUEZ

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — The live-in boyfriend of a west­ern Ohio woman whose dis­mem­bered remains were found in her bath­tub has been indicted on aggra­vated mur­der and other charges.

The Cham­paign County grand jury indicted Matthew Puc­cio and four oth­ers Thurs­day on charges related to the March death of 21-year-old Jes­sica Rae Sacco.

Andrew and Kan­dace For­ney of Fen­ton, Mich., and Christo­pher Wright and Sharon Cook of Urbana, Ohio, also were indicted in the case. Police say they stood by and did noth­ing as Sacco was killed and helped Puc­cio cut off or trans­port limbs.

Puc­cio, 25, is accused of stab­bing Sacco, plac­ing a plas­tic bag over her head to suf­fo­cate her and dis­mem­ber­ing her in their Urbana duplex apart­ment. Police say some of her limbs were dumped in south­west Ohio and Ken­tucky, about 70 to 85 miles away. Her land­lord found other remains in the bath­tub on March 30, eight days after author­i­ties believe she died.

Puc­cio could face up to life in prison if convicted.

The sus­pects appeared briefly Fri­day in court, where a judge said they would receive court-appointed attor­neys; a new hear­ing was set for Tues­day. Puc­cio was ini­tially being held in the Tri-County Regional Jail in Mechan­ics­burg on $100,000 bond. The oth­ers were being held at the jail on bonds of $50,000 each.

Their attor­neys did not imme­di­ately return tele­phone mes­sages seek­ing comment.

Puc­cio has said Sacco begged him to kill her after he con­fronted her about text mes­sages she’d sent say­ing she wanted him dead.

Sacco had lived in Cal­i­for­nia in recent years. Puc­cio said they had been together for about a year and a half and that the rela­tion­ship started going sour about two months ago.

Along with aggra­vated mur­der charges, Puc­cio faces charges of felo­nious assault, felony gross abuse of a corpse and mis­de­meanor abuse of a corpse, tam­per­ing with evi­dence and pos­ses­sion of crim­i­nal tools.

Andrew For­ney, 26, is charged with gross abuse of a corpse and abuse of a corpse, tam­per­ing with and com­plic­ity to tam­per with evi­dence, obstruct­ing jus­tice, fail­ure to report a crime and pos­ses­sion of crim­i­nal tools. His wife, 25, is charged with obstruct­ing jus­tice, fail­ure to report a crime, pos­ses­sion of crim­i­nal tools and com­plic­ity to tam­per­ing with evidence.

Wright, 37, is charged with gross abuse of a corpse and abuse of corpse, tam­per­ing with evi­dence, obstruct­ing jus­tice and fail­ure to report a crime.

Cook, 25, is charged with fail­ure to report a crime, com­plic­ity to gross abuse of a corpse and to abuse of a corpse, com­plic­ity to tam­per­ing with evi­dence and com­plic­ity to obstruct­ing justice.

Urbana police Chief Matt Lin­grell has said Puc­cio and Sacco recently met the For­neys online and that the mem­bers of the group were “loose friends.”

Inves­ti­ga­tors haven’t com­mented on a motive for the killing.

Posted by AP News on Apr 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.